I had no intention of watching this soul-sucking, studio-steered reboot, but
when I found out Lakeith Stanfield was in it, I thought it deserved a shot. The
man's in Sorry to Bother You (reviewed
here), Uncut Gems, and Donald Glover's Atlanta just to name a few, so
he picks his projects well. The Girl in the Spider's Web is no exception,
even if it doesn't come close to David Fincher's
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Fede Álvarez's action-thriller is an adaptation, with a screenplay by Jay Bassu,
Álvarez, and Steven Knight, of David Lagercrantz's first post-Stieg Larsson
book. So, it's completely within reason for it to serve as both a sequel and
reboot to what Fincher kicked off. From Vudu's plot description of the
movie, "[Lisbeth] Salander (Claire Foy) and journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir
Gudnason) find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt
government officials, as they race to rescue a dangerous [computer] program..."
One person in the race is Edward Needham (Stanfield), on behalf of the NSA. This
gives Álvarez and his crew a lot of room to take creative liberties with the
world and craft something with their own stamp on it. It also gives the studios
room to zero-in on what they think will attract an audience this time, action.
Luckily both things work well together.
Poster | Copyright 2018 Sony and MGM
The best examples of this are with Salander's character changes. Her edges are
softened thanks to her relationship with Blomkvist, and she's infamous, since
Blomkvist wrote about her. Foy still plays the part with viciousness and her
guard up, like someone playing Salander should, but the character growth
cracks through in moments that I didn't think the movie would take the time to
show. As unlikely as it is for people to face each other in separate glass
elevators, in different buildings, and get cell reception, it works. It works
because at least an attempt at substance was made, and that's all I really
wanted from this one. If this gets people to check out other work by these
filmmakers, better work, that's definitely worth it.
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